


Tea

by Marmosette



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Consequences, Fortnum & Mason, M/M, Tea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-18
Updated: 2012-02-18
Packaged: 2017-10-31 09:32:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/342515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marmosette/pseuds/Marmosette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mycroft has a meeting with Greg over tea at Fortnum & Mason's. A waiter puts his foot in it, and Mycroft explains to Greg his definition of "consequences."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tea

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Eva](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eva/gifts), [sheffiesharpe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheffiesharpe/gifts).



> This one was requested by Sheffie, who wanted the boys and tea. And it's quite fond of Eva's notes on her Morcroft nightmare.

“Two, please.”

The waiter nodded and checked his chart. “Do you have a reservation?”

“No.” Greg looked across the room. There were five empty tables; how many people made reservations for a Tuesday morning?

“I’m sorry, but I don’t see anything available.”

Greg frowned, but it was more for the look of the thing. “Right-o. Well, you tried.” He turned back to the stairs. “Come on, you.”

“I beg your pardon,” Mycroft Holmes said, ignoring Greg Lestrade completely. “I think you may have misunderstood. A table, two chairs...” 

It was too late. Greg’s arms and stomach turned to lead, his shoulders dropped, and he turned slowly around, seeing Mycroft had cut eye contact with the waiter, who had gone white and was already turning away. Another waiter hurried over, and there was muttering, and the new waiter took over. “Two, yes. By the windows, this way.”

Greg followed in Mycroft’s wake, steeling himself. It wasn’t as if he were wearing a T-shirt and jeans, but even if he and Mycroft swapped wardrobes, he would still have the whiff of late nights in carparks, blood and formaldehyde, crime scenes and morgues. Mycroft radiated private showings, deals, labels, and lines, public school and service, chartered jets, antique furniture, red boxes. Mycroft radiated House of Lords, and Greg would always be household-common. And Mycroft did not give a single, solitary fuck about anyone who dared to make a distinction. 

Greg, however, did care. Not because they deserved it, but because they were humans, and someday they could be material witnesses, or victims, or family members of victims. Or, in fact, murderers, rapists, or family members thereof. Or waiting tables to save for bar applications, or applying to Hendon, or have a brother who was, or a father who had, or any number of other horrible, complicated relationships to make his life hell. He couldn’t steamroll them the way Mycroft Holmes could; anything smaller than a continent wasn’t always guaranteed his understanding.

This train of thought kept him occupied until they were finally seated. “It wasn’t worth it,” he muttered when the staff were all safely out of earshot.

“Of course it wasn’t,” Mycroft agreed, startling him. “Exactly why it had to be done.”

“Is this just your own family’s version of making sense? Because here on Earth, we do it differently, and I’m not sure it always translates.”

“Rather a mean aspiration, but there is something to be said for the short, sharp shock.”

“That it’s nasty, British, and short?” Greg shot back.

Mycroft looked up at him, and Greg could understand why Cabinet ministers began to sweat on finding Mycroft Holmes on their schedules. His blue-grey eyes became the hardest thing - his graceful fingers flicking open a menu and turning it around, holding it out to Greg, his posture relaxed, while his eyes did not blink, did not so much as flicker between his own. It was like having a missile locked onto your forehead and moving in slow motion.

“I wonder what you would think if I said that a staff member in the Fountain restaurant had been asked to use a special pot for hot water should a man wearing a silver tiepin ask for chamomile tea. Or if I said that a South American ambassador would be visiting in three weeks and hoped to be able to slip into the Royal Academy while his daughters wanted to do some shopping without closing down an entire street?”

“We’re here while you spot-check their security?” Greg asked in disbelief.

“Absolutely not.”

“But- oh. I see.” Greg looked down at the menu he was holding. “But it’s tea. Why do I have a menu?”

Mycroft blinked, shifted a bit in his chair, and smiled, very slowly. “Sherlock never quite manages to despise you. You may have created a new philosophy: tolerance through sarcastic antagonism.”

“You catch on faster than he does,” Greg said, closing the menu and setting it at the side of the table. “I’m not sure yet if that makes you more fun, or less.”

“And again.”

“Less. Definitely.”

“Or a different kind.”

“Don’t start anything you can’t finish.”

“You might be surprised by my stamina.”

“Or horrified. No, just...stop that right now,” Greg said, resting the sides of his palms against the edge of the table. “You are not going to take a conversation down those paths while forcing me through tea at Fortnum’s.”

“Strong word, ‘forcing.’ You don’t seem the type to be susceptible.”

“I told you. I am not going to flirt with you. It’s just wrong, sometimes. You do know that?”

“How many close friends do you have, Detective Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard?”

“I...what? What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It’s a genuine question. And I don’t actually know the answer. Tell me.”

“I have friends. What do you mean by ‘close?’ Take a knife for me? Attend their stag nights? Go to a match? Godfather of their children?”

“Yes. Any of those. All of them?”

“Okay... I’ve taken a knife for a mate. A couple of times, metaphorically speaking, but only once physically.”

“That’s duty, loyalty, even the job.”

“Could be for any number of reasons,” Greg countered. “Don’t start oversimplifying life-and-death motives or someone really will think you and Sherlock are related.”

“That happens less than you’d think. So how many stag nights have you attended for people whose contact details are still in your mobile?”

Greg smiled, then stopped and thought. “Actually, quite a few. Four - no, wait, five...six? I can check, if you’d like.”

“And when was the last time you actually contacted any of them?”

“Two of them work at the Met still. One’s transfered out somewhere in western ruralshire. Mm...dunno about him, maybe a year...” 

“Point taken. I can’t imagine you get to many football matches as a new DI.”

“Yeah, not since the promotion. I caught part of a match a couple of weeks ago but then got called to a drive-by. Not my favourite day.”

“And you have godchildren?”

“Nah. Someone threatened to ask me a couple of times, but he’d had quite a few by then and the next day didn’t even remember where the pub had been.”

“But you did remember.”

“I was driving. That might have been why he threatened to ask me.”

“So a well-rounded life. I congratulate you.”

The waiter returned to ask if they were ready to order, sparing Greg from having to respond immediately. “I’m ready if you are,” Greg told Mycroft.

“By all means.” A slight movement of his fingers, waving Greg to go first. 

“Pot of the rose pouchong,” Greg said, settling back in his chair and keeping his eyes on Mycroft. That should have at least surprised him, he felt. It really should have. He’d barely glanced at the menu, they’d been talking the entire time, surely he had earned the tiniest hint of approval, something to show Greg had impressed him.

“And the mudan for me,” Mycroft said, not backing down from Greg’s stare.

“Anything to eat?” the waiter asked, looking from one to the other. Greg could just taste the anxiety, the attempt to be scrupulously impartial.

“Not just yet,” Mycroft said.

“I thought you had an important meeting scheduled this afternoon,” Greg said after the waiter left.

“I do. This is it.”

“Oh, fantastic,” Greg said acidly. “Now what do you want to know?”

“Have you had rose souchong before?”

Greg blinked. This was not what he expected. But Mycroft’s hard, implacable gaze had lightened, shifted. “Uh, yeah. Yeah. But you never know if you’re doing it right, unless you’ve tried it somewhere else, too.”

“It isn’t a soufflé, Lestrade. It’s simply a matter of finding your taste preference.”

“No, it’s more like wine - there’s a peak, and then if you pass it, you can’t go back. You can’t stew it and cover it up with milk.”

Mycroft was silent for a moment, studying him. “You cook.”

“There are only so many times you can eat sandwiches. And you don’t survive long with these hours and this pay if you can’t cook.”

“A survey of the Met would prove otherwise.”

“I can’t do that,” Greg said, shaking his head and looking away. “No, the burgers on the way home from a scene, vending machine crap while doing paperwork at four in the morning, plasticky pre-packaged boxy things. You end up fat, disgusted, depressed, and dead, booted out or up into management. No thank you.” 

“Not always.”

“I don’t want to wake up someday and not be able to have a kick-around, have to take fifteen pills just to get out of bed, not be able to run, stuck in a car or behind a desk. Besides, I enjoy cooking.”

“You are an unpredictable mix,” Mycroft said, leaning his elbows on the table and interlacing his fingers. 

“You never did tell me - why are we here? What exactly makes this an important meeting?”

“I set the time aside to talk to you,” Mycroft said, quite seriously. “I thought after the last few crime scenes, you seemed... but perhaps not.” He frowned. “Why, what did you think this was about?”

“So...we’re on a date?” Greg asked cautiously.

“This need to quantify, to label, to define things. Is it much use in your private life?”

Greg leaned forward and mirrored Mycroft’s pose. “This method of answering a question with another question. Do you like being punched in the nose?”

Mycroft’s head tilted, he smiled, a smile that actually extended up to his eyes, and then he laughed, in absolute delight, Greg would have said. He didn’t join in, but it did make him smile. “Force of habit, I’m afraid,” Mycroft said, still laughing. 

“Are you seriously proposing this is some kind of...is it a date?”

“Does it need to have a title? No, I’m sorry.” He laughed again, this time a little self-consciously, which caught Greg off-guard. “It is just such questions that interest me. You are not a predictable man, you are intelligent, handsome... I am interested in you. I find you of interest. You are a pleasant thought.”

Greg blinked, frowning. “Hang on. You’re Sherlock’s brother. This feels like, I dunno, some kind of conflict of interest.”

“How so?”

“I don’t know. I -” He stopped as the tea arrived. 

“Pouchong... fancy mudan. Will there be anything else?”

“No, thank you.” Mycroft’s glance said it all: he was dismissed, all was not forgiven, he should not relax.

“Why do you do that?” Greg asked.

“Do what?” Mycroft asked, lifting his cup.

“Just... No, it’s not vindictive. It’s...punishment. It’s like you punish people for things they could never possibly have got right in the first place.”

There was no answering lift of the eyebrows, no wry smile in response. For a moment, Greg thought he had been too harsh, and now he was about to feel the dark side of  that sense of justice. “I believe in consequences,” Mycroft said, his words slower than they usually were. “I believe people have the right to act, and are responsible for their actions. It isn’t always appropriate to restrict choices at the outset, or to guide or manipulate them, even if it is usually possible. People often don’t think through all of the consequences when they act, but if there are never any consequences, how will they ever learn?”

“You’d be a hell of a father,” Greg muttered, sighing. He tasted his tea. “Ahh, now this is nice.”

Mycroft glanced at him, smiled absently. “Children, obviously, are not an issue. Children are still learning. At some age, however, responsibility must be learned, and accepted.”

“But sometimes it doesn’t matter. It’s just not important.”

“All the better. Isn’t it better to learn to behave well in a situation where no one is likely to die as a result?”

“But no one _is_ going to die. That’s the point. You can choose to be magnanimous. Forgiving.”

“I can. But I shall not, as some things... no. Some _people_ are important.”

“Didn’t somebody once say that personal isn’t the same as important?”

“It does not mean that personal _cannot_ be the same as important.”

Greg paused. “Wait. Uh.” He laughed, and scratched his head. “I mean, it’s flattering, but you’re sitting there arguing with the person you’re supposedly defending. I’m the one saying it’s wrong, you shouldn’t do it. Saying you’re doing it for me...doesn’t that kind of tell you something?”

“That you would not think the point worth making if our positions were reversed.” Mycroft’s frown was puzzled. “Of course.”

“No, I mean, I don’t want you to make someone else feel bad. It isn’t going to make me feel better.”

“That isn’t the point of the exercise. The point is to demonstrate that actions have consequences.”

“Why?” Greg shot back, changing tack.

“I have explained this.”

“Just go with me. Why?”

“So that in the future, he will think before he makes assumptions, and makes rude assumptions about people.”

“Which assumes, in fact, that he doesn’t know this. You can’t assume that he is like this with everyone. You can’t assume he doesn’t know this already.”

“All right,” Mycroft conceded, setting his cup down delicately. “What conclusions should I draw?”

“None. You assume too much.” Mycroft did raise his eyebrows at this, but Greg pushed on. “Maybe I remind him of his father. Maybe he had a rude customer in who looked a bit like me. Maybe he’s just finishing his shift and this is his second job and he’s just tired and was hoping to bunk off early. Maybe there’s a huge group due in five minutes and they did need the space.”

“Maybe he looked at your jacket, the creases of your trousers, your shoes, and your hands, and assumed you weren’t with me.”

“Stop right there,” Greg said, holding up a finger. “This isn’t about what you can read in his eye contact. The point is that you don’t _know_.”

“The point is that I cannot _prove_ ,” Mycroft corrected. 

“And I can’t prove anything either, but that’s the point!” Greg said, exasperated. “I don’t want you hurting someone else purely because he hurt me!”

“Now, _that,_ ” Mycroft said slowly, raising one finger, “that is an assumption.”

“Would you be treating him like this if you were here with your brother? Would you be like this if he had snubbed Sherlock?”

“Impossible. I spend a great deal of time trying not to deal with Sherlock in public. You know I don’t even speak to him at the crime scenes.”

“Well, just...” Greg stammered. It was always so difficult to make a point to a Holmes. Sherlock acted as though he already knew, and maybe he did. Mycroft would listen, but had a terrible way of saying things that made Greg follow him off on tangents. And he was always following. Mycroft steered the subjects, had an answer for everything, or at least another question. In order to talk to a Holmes, you couldn’t think like one - no one could, anyway - but you needed tunnel vision that amounted to focusing a laser. 

“Look,” Greg tried again. “You were asking me about my friends, before. I don’t know anyone else in common with you, so just... think of someone you _do_ like, one of your own friends. If I met him, would he not make the same assumptions the waiter did? Would you be so quick to dismiss someone who really was your equal, over some imagined insult to me?”

“Faster,” Mycroft said, fiercely. “If such a thing ever happened. Which it would not.”

“Oh, so everyone you know is some paragon of even-handedness -?” Greg began hotly.

“Friends, you said,” Mycroft cut him off, his voice quiet, his eyes again that commanding, unwavering stare. “Allies, yes. In different causes. Contacts. Scheduled meetings. Staff. Assets. Convivial adversaries. _Equals...”_ He paused, raising his finger again. “Few. Friends?” He turned his head slightly, his eyes staying on Greg’s. 

Greg’s breath stopped. He swallowed, looked down at his tea quickly, hid behind taking a long, slow drink. “I don’t like what that says,” he said finally.

“Beside the point.” Mycroft’s hand - long, slender, elegant - brushed this aside. “You are what you are, Gregory Lestrade. I am as I am. I live with myself, and the consequences of my actions. As do you. There are always consequences. _Always._ What you should ask is not what I do for my friends, but what I would do if I did not know you.”

This time, the pause was mutual. And until Mycroft looked away, down at his cooling tea, licked his lips, and raised the cup to his lip, Greg wasn’t sure how awkward this was. “No... no, this is definitely the most awkward anyone has made me feel in months.”

Mycroft glanced up at him, smiled briefly, then looked away. And actually laughed. “Well, shall we just be blunt, then?” he asked, sounding human again.

“Can’t make it any worse,” Greg agreed. 

“I find you agonizingly attractive.” Mycroft gave a small nod, as if encouraging himself. “If you’re appalled by me cutting a waiter dead, all I can tell you is that I have been considering far worse things, as we sit here, and I have not done any of them. Such is my restraint.” He leaned back, folding his arms, crossing his legs, and radiating, _I’m done. Your turn._

“You scare the shit out of me,” Greg said, and blinked. Where the hell had that come from? “I never know how seriously to take any of this, but when you’ve had your fill of sitting here watching that poor idiot squirm, why don’t we adjourn the meeting - at least back to my place I won’t have to worry about any other consequences happening to innocent bystanders.”

Mycroft pursed his lips, frowned, looked down at his shoe. “I scare you?”

“Yeah, you do. For all kinds of reasons.”

That made him look up. “And yet...?”

“I’ll bet I can strip faster than you can. There are advantages to not wearing a tie.”


End file.
